Cooling arrangements comprising a base plate, a system board, a processor and a cooling apparatus are widely known. Relatively low-power processors can still be cooled using a passive heat sink which is mounted on the processor itself. However, modern very powerful processors generate much more heat. Active cooling apparatus, e.g., heat sinks, which have fans permanently mounted on them, are therefore generally used for cooling such powerful processors. Other types of cooling are also known, for example the use of water coolers or heat pipes in conjunction with separate heat sinks.
As a result of the increasing power and importance of the cooling apparatus used, the fastening of such cooling apparatus is also becoming increasingly important. Cooling apparatus are generally fastened directly to a system board, typically via fastening lugs on the side of a processor base. As a result of such rigid fastening, applied forces create a shearing strain between the cooling apparatus and the system board. This has the disadvantage that forces which act on heavy cooling apparatus during transport, e.g., may be translated to the system board causing serious damage. In addition, it is possible for particularly heavy cooling apparatus to become detached from the processor base. This may result, for example, in short circuits within the computer or else may damage the processor. Even if the computer is still ready to use after the cooling apparatus has become detached, the processor may be destroyed, e.g., as a result of thermal overloading.
In order to limit the weight of cooling apparatus which are used, it is known to provide relatively small heat sinks with particularly powerful fans so that the air flow and thus the cooling power are increased while the heat sink surface area remains the same. However, this has the disadvantage that fans which rotate at high speed generally give rise to a high level of noise which is disruptive to a user of the computer.